North Korea, Cuba, and Myanmar were the three countries in the world where Coke wasn’t sold. Now Coke is back on the menu in Myanmar and Robert Smith looked at how Coca-Cola went about marketing its product in a country that had never tasted it before:

• Smugglers had long brought Coke into the country and so people were aware of the Coca-Cola brand name.
• However the high mark-ups that the smugglers charged for the product meant that people in Myanmar thought that the drink was an expensive luxury reserved for the rich.
• To combat this every Coke label in Myanmar prominently displays the price of the drink.
• Since Myanmar lags in the use of technology, Coke looked to how it used to market its product in the past, in a time before internet and television. Billboards were the way forward.
• The company was also concerned that in a country without reliable electricity, people would first try lukewarm Coke. To ensure that the first experience with the drink was a positive one Coca-Cola set up free tasting events where they served ice-cold Coke.

Read more about the instructions that are printed on Coke labels in Myanmar, the words that Coca-Cola is using to push Coke, and more over here.

Source: NPR